Committee Chair

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Author's Keywords

Subject

Distributive justice; Social justice; United States Olympic Committee

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to measure U.S. National Governing Body (NGB) administrators' perceptions of fairness of financial resource allocation within the U.S. Olympic Movement. The study was grounded in the organizational justice literature, specifically in distributive justice, which focuses on the perceived fairness of outcome decisions within organizations. This study follows that pattern, but adds to it by examining a new setting and controlling for the construct of procedural justice, which focuses on perceived fairness of policies and procedures employed within organizations. The study examined the perceived fairness of seven Distribution Principles and also measured which Distribution Principle NGB administrators believed was the most fair and which was most likely to be used to make resource allocation decisions. Study participants most often identified Need to be Competitively Successful as the most fair distribution principle but believed Equity Based on Medals Won was the most likely to be used. These results expand the growing literature on resource allocation in athletics by exploring a new context, the U.S. Olympic Movement, and offer practical understanding as to how U.S. NGB administrators perceive resource distribution decisions.